How to Add Instant Depth of Field to Your Photos

The more detailed you can make your images, the better they will look. Using Adobe’s Photoshop, you can do many amazing things with your designs. One of the more subtle changes that you can make, but one that can have a profound effect on the overall “f

The more detailed you can make your images, the better they will look. Using Adobe’s Photoshop, you can do many amazing things with your designs. One of the more subtle changes that you can make, but one that can have a profound effect on the overall “feel” of the picture, is to add depth of field.

What is depth of field? Basically, it is the focus of the image. Put another way, it is how the subject (main point of focus) of the image contrasts with all of the other, less important parts of the image. When you look at a landscape, for instance, with your own eyes, you see different objects in different focus levels. Images, no matter how they are produced, are not able to recapture that precisely. Programs like Photoshop allow you to alter the field of depth of the image in a way that you want, in order to make certain parts of the image stand out more.

1. From your Vue render, save both the RGB and Z-depth images. You want to be able to go back to this point if you make a mistake.

2. On the Z-depth image, go to Select All >> COPY.

3. On the RGB image, choose the channels tab.

4. In the channels tab, click on the new layer icon to create a new alpha layer.

5. Paste the Z-depth image that you copied in step 2 onto your new alpha layer.

6. Now go back to the layers tab.

7. Select the background image and look at the Filter menu. Choose the lens blur filter.

8. Click on the image at any point to set the blur focal distance. When you click on an item in the image, everything besides that item becomes blurred.

9. Use the Radius slider on the right side of the screen to adjust the amount of blur.

10. Go back and do these steps over with each different object in your image until you get the depth of field that you want.

As with most of the changes you make to your images, you will want to do this in a subtle manner. Making drastic changes can significantly damage your image. Sometimes even relatively minor alterations can have unfortunate effects. That is why you should save your work before you begin, and also save regularly while you are making your changes. You never know when a mistake will creep up and bite you.

Also, it is usually best to go through each object in your image, and adjust the amount of blur slightly on each one, before going back through them all again afterwards. This allows you to keep everything in the proper context, without accidentally “over-doing” it.

Kaitlyn Miller is a copywriter for http://www.printplace.com, a printing company based in Arlington, Texas.